Shoulder still sore, so more breaststroke and kicking. Another visit to the cryosauna tomorrow. Haven't seen my chiro yet, but prolly should. I keep hoping the pain will go away quickly with all the babying. But these sorts of things never seen to subside as quickly as they appear ...

Going to do some rehab exercises and then off to open house at Lil Fort's school tonight.

Well, after doing my favorite IM set on Sunday, my shoulder did not feel great. I took Monday off and went to the gym Tuesday. I'm about to head out to the cryo sauna to see if that will help. Probably more kicking at Pitt tonight.

Did a little more swimming yesterday, albeit mostly with fins. Backstroke seems to be the worse for the poor bicep tendon. I will prolly go to the gym today, tho I really can't do much upper body work right now (a comment I've made frequently during my masters career).

Hmm ... that was a lot of yardage for "sprint" night. My shoulder felt worse yesterday with a familiar dull ache. I really hope it's not tendonitis ... already had a bout of elbow tendonitis this year. It could be that I have a little ice burn. In any event, it feels better today and I hope this trend continues. Obviously, I did a sh*t ton of kicking, again, to rest it.

Today I was pretty bushed from last night. I find it hard to swim in the evening and then be recovered sufficiently the next day at noon. So I took it pretty easy today so that I can do some sprinting at Pitt tomorrow.

My shoulder is feeling somewhat better. For once, I started resting it at the first sign of pain.

I am being a little indecisive about my meet schedule moving forward. I had thought about going to the Rowdy meet, but I'm not positive my shoulder will be 100%. I will definitely do the Sprint Classic on Oct. 30 and I am thinking of doing this meet in lieu of NE Champs on Nov. 19-20. http://www.usms.org/comp/event.php?M...0161119SCMNACS. That would allow me to train through December and perhaps taper a bit for the Auburn meet in February. I am not planning on going to Riverside. My allergies & asthma have been debilitating the last 3 years in late April, so I don't want to plan a taper meet for that month this year. Plus, it's a not so great pool, outside, and very far away. I could always go to Zones if all is well. I was hoping to see some Ohio meets on the USMS calendar, but there aren't any listed yet.

That was a ton of long course kicking and my quads are a bit sore. I was actually pleasantly surprised with my times on the aerobic kick sets. I'm not usually a descender, and I was not in great distress. I was especially surprised to crank out a couple pretty fast 50 kicks at the very end of practice. I guess I am in better shape than usual with all the long course training. Although I definitely just have more leg endurance than swim endurance. Hope everyone is having a great day!

Got in my last outdoor swim of the season this am. The water temp has been in the 79 degree range, which is so much more palatable than the hot pool temps of July. Unfortunately, my right bicep tendon is very painful at the moment. It was probably that longish (for me) fly set that I did the other day. Whenever the though flies into my head to work on fly, I should smother that thought. It's always deadly. I'm hoping a few days of kick only workouts will be of help. Hope everyone is having a relaxing Labor Day weekend!

It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Not a cloud in the sky and the water temperature was fine, not too warm. It was rather crowded. But I shared a lane with two swimmers from Lebo Masters. That is vastly easier than circling with the noodlier lap swimmers. I managed to make it through 8 x 50 fly. Held 29s on all of them. I was surprised I could do 8 of them, but I took a bit more rest on the last 3-4. I am anxious to get back to Pitt to see friends there after a month of closure. But it's just too nice to pass up two hours in the outdoor pool right now.

Happily, the Mt. Lebo pool is still open this week for adult swim despite school having started yesterday. And they've extended the lap swim to 2 hours, which is nice bc I don't feel as crushed to cram in sprint work. The sun is shining this am as well, so I am headed there again. Oh, going 50 meters with a big chute attached is hard!

I drove down to Cleveland on Friday for the End of the Season Summer Spectacular LCM meet. It was a beautiful sunny day and it was nice to have a couple friends from Pitt there too. I went just to swim the 50 free and 50 breast to complete my sprint quartet. Though I have been doing low yardage with the pool open for only an hour, I have done dedicated long course training with a lot of AFAP 25s and 50s for the last 6 out of 7 weeks. I felt better than I did at the Terrapin meet in early July -- like I wasn't completely crashing the last 10 meters. For me, long course training makes a difference.

50 free, 28.80

I felt like I had a great start and the race went as well as could be hoped. Took 3 breaths and 13 SDKs on the start with a clean breakout. I was really just hoping to go under the current #1 time of 29.6. So I was thrilled to clear 29. And that swim was only .11 off the WR. Maybe if I had had a fin ...

50 breast, 38.75

I did not have such a great start in this race. My back foot slipped slightly on the block and I entered the water much more shallow than usual. Definitely missing the fin on this one. But otherwise, I think this is a very good time for me. I'm really not a long course breaststroker; haven't swum this in 4 years. So I will take it!

100 back, NS

There weren't too many heats between the 50 breast and 100 back. But the real deterrent for me was the shallow end. I knew the pool had a shallow end, but I hadn't realized it was 3 feet. I can't do a backstroke turn in 3 feet of water and didn't feel like lane ping pong in the sun. So, invoking masters prerogative, I scratched.

Overall, it was a very fun low key meet with nice hosts. And I was tickled to achieve my objective of grabbing the #1 times in all four LCM 50s, a first for me. I headed to the Lebo pool on Sunday and did this easy workout:

Since there are only a few days until my LCM meet, I've decided to take it a bit easy and do a couple SCY workouts. There are a whole 46 swimmers entered in the meet thus far. Fingers crossed for good weather. Going to go hit the foam roller tonight for the first time in ages.

Finished a full three weeks of LCM only training. I fear I'll be a little rusty when short course season starts without any work on starts, turns, SDKs, etc. But swimming options are very few here in the summer, particularly in August with all the pool closures. Today, I'm going to do an easy workout at LA Fitness.

I entered one of the last LCM meets of the year a couple hours from my house on Saturday: 50 breast, 50 free, 100 back. It will be a small very fast meet, so I may not get enough rest for the 100 back. I haven't been training too much the last couple months, which has been a nice break, but I should have enough in the tank for a couple 50s. Hope the weather cooperates.

More long course. I haven't been in a short course pool since I was on vacation the end of July. Feels a bit weird.

I've been following the Lochte-Feigen-Bentz-Conger story on swimswam. The comments are pretty interesting. The Brazilian video seemed inconclusive to me, and doesn't really support the Lochte lying narrative exactly. But if what the AP is reporting is true, and it's only hearsay, this is a disaster.

I haven't blogged for a few days. I was just too caught up in the Olympic viewing and coverage. It takes awhile to read all the SwimSwam comments! I did a few drylands at some point that I don't recall. And I've done 3 long course workouts at Lebo during the hour of adult swim. Suffering severely from Olympic swimming withdrawal.

I was a bit tired after that workout. Not much yardage -- I really can't do more than that in an hour -- but plenty of quality.

I was stupid the other day. I was driving around and left the top down with my swim bag and equipment bag in the car during lunch with a friend. I came back and my equipment bag was gone. Ouch! No idea why they took that and left the backpack. I have extra fins and paddles, but the bungee cordz + parachute + drag sox replacement will be pricey.

Still chugging along. Doing less yardage than usual, but LCM is hard. The last of those AFAP 50s yesterday was tough.

Very excited that the Olympics are finally here! The doping scandals are a bit of a pall though. Aside from the Russians and some of the Chinese, it's scandalous that Brazil (a country with a ton of doping positives), didn't even drug test their athletes in the month before the Olympics. I'm sure the US has dopers too, but at least we have USADA. After they took down Armstrong, no one can doubt that it is a pitbull of any agency.

That is my last workout at Pitt until Aug 31. Its a longer closure than usual due to construction of new varsity locker rooms. Too bad, its the coolest water around at the moment. I'm pretty beat from yesterday's double. Not sure what I will get up to today ...

-- did yoga, core work and light weights for an hour
-- heading off to the last Team Pitt practice of August in another hour
-- it's going to be long course

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I'm thinking of heading to a last chance LCM meet on August 27: https://www.clubassistant.com/club/m...1236&smid=8088. I would swim the 50 free, 50 breast and possibly the 100 breast or 100 back. I'm definitely not in shape for long course 100s, so would only do that for fun. Although I'm not really sure how much "fun" the 100 back would be in an outdoor pool. Last time I did that I had a quite mediocre time.

We finally had some waves. I did 90 minutes of body surfing before a storm moved in. That counts as a workout!

Sunday: Swim/SCM/Solo @ Hot Pool

500 various
5 x (25 scull + 25 free) w/paddles
50 EZ

20 x 25 breast @ 100 pace @ approx :25 rest
250 EZ

20 x 25 free w/fins & paddles @ 100 pace @ approx :25 rest
250 EZ

10 x 50 various
100 EZ

Total: 2900 m

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I was careful about sun our entire vacation. Then, on the last day, I scorched my face. Too much time in the water without reapplying sunscreen, I fear. We are headed home tomorrow. I'm dreading the super long drive ... But at least we won't hit as much traffic leaving on a Monday.